Detection Unlimited (4 page)

'Dad won't support Warrenby, sir,' interpolated Charles. 'I know that. For one thing, he's dead against hurting poor old Drybeck's feelings.

'Charles!' said his mother, with a warning glance towards the tennis-court. • 'All right, Mum: they can't hear us. And, for another, he's just about had Warrenby, muscling into every damned thing here!'

'Nor is he alone in his surfeit,' said Gavin. 'I too shall oppose Warrenby. I feel sure Walter would have: he always opposed people.'

The Squire threw him a frowning look, but said nothing. Kenelm Lindale, lighting a cigarette, and carefully pressing the spent match into the ground, said: 'Well, I don't want to hurt Drybeck's feelings either, but, to tell you the truth, I don't really know much about this River Board.'

'And you a riparian owner!' said Charles, shocked. 'There used to be one Catchment Board for the Rushy, here, and another one for the Crail, which for your better information is --'

'All right!' said Kenelm, grinning at him. 'I know where the Crail runs! I also know that two old Catchment Boards have become one new River Board. What I meant was, what about the Crail half of the Board? Haven't they got a candidate for the solicitor's job?'

'The man who used to look after their interests has retired,' said the Squire shortly. 'You'd better read the correspondence. I'll show it to you, if you like to -- No, now I come to think of it, I sent it on to you, Gavin. I wish you'd let me have it back.'

He turned away, and began to talk to his hostess. Another game was soon arranged, he and Mrs Cliburn taking the places of Charles and Abigail, who went off with Gavin and Mrs Haswell to engage in a lighthearted game of Crazy Croquet, which Charles insisted was the only sort of croquet he understood.

Tea was served under the elm tree on the lawn to the east of the house, the tennis-players joining the party when their respective sets ended, and hailing with acclaim the discovery that Mrs Haswell, always a perfect hostess, had provided iced coffee for their refreshment.

Mrs Ainstable arrived at about half-past five, leaving her car in the drive, and walking through the rose-covered archway that led to the eastern lawn. Mrs Haswell rose at once, and went to meet her; and she said, in her rather high-pitched inconsequent voice: 'I do apologize! Don't say I'm too late to be given tea: I should burst into tears. Isn't it hot? How lovely the garden's looking! We've got greenfly.'

'My dear, you don't look fit to be out!' said Mrs Haswell, taking her hand, and looking at her in a concerned way. 'Are you sure you're all right?'

'Oh, yes! Just one of my wretched heads. Better now. Don't say anything about it: Bernard worries so about me!'

This was seen to be true. The Squire had come up to them, and was anxiously scanning his wife's face. 'My dear, is this wise of you? I hoped you'd have a sleep.'

'I did have a sleep, Bernard, and it did me so much good that I couldn't bear to stay away from Adelaide's party. Now, don't fuss, darling, please!'

He shook his head, but said no more. Mrs Haswell could not think it wonderful that he should be worried. Rosamund Ainstable, though more than ten years his junior, was a woman who, without having any organic disease, had never enjoyed good health. Her constitution was delicate; any exertion out of the way was apt to prostrate her; and she was the victim of sick headaches whose cause had consistently baffled her many medical advisers. She had ceased to try to discover it, saying, with rueful laugh, that having worked her way expensively up Harley Street, she had neither the means nor the stamina to work her way down it. In the popular phrase, she lived or. her nerves, which were ill-adapted to bear the strain. She had endured two world wars, dying a thousand vicarious deaths in the first, when she had known that every telegram delivered to her must contain the news that her husband had been killed in action; and losing her only child in the second. Her friends had prophesied that she would not recover from this blow; but she had recovered, exerting herself to support and to comfort the Squire, whose pride and hope were buried somewhere in the North African Desert. It might have been expected that he and she, with their heir dead, would have ceased to struggle to maintain an estate impoverished by the financial demands of one war, and brought almost to penury by those of a second, but, as the Squire's legal adviser, Thaddeus Drybeck, loftily pointed out to his acquaintance, Blood Told, and the Squire continued to plan and contrive as though he believed he would be succeeded by the son he had adored, and not by a nephew whom he scarcely knew, and did not much like.

Mrs Haswell, installing her friend in a comfortable chair and supplying her with the tea for which she said she craved, was tactful not to betray her realization that this was one of poor Rosamund's bad days. There was a glitter in those restless eyes, too high a colour in those thin cheeks, an artificial gaiety in the high-pitched voice, which she could not like, and hoped the Squire would not notice. Whether he did or not it was impossible to guess: by tradition and temperament he was a man who concealed his thoughts and his feelings.

When all the strawberries had been eaten and all the iced coffee drunk, the Vicar solved a problem which had been exercising Mrs Haswell's mind for some time. He said that much as he would like to engage on further Homeric struggles duty called him, and he must away, to pay a parochial visit on a sick parishioner. This left only nine potential tennis-players to be accommodated on two courts, and no one could doubt, as Gavin Plenmeller informed Kenelm Lindale under his breath that Miss Warrenby would honestly prefer to watch. He was quite right, but judging by his expression, had scarcely foreseen the immediate sequel to this act of self-abnegation. When polite opposition had been overborne, Mrs Haswell said: 'You and Gavin must keep one another company, then, dear. Rosamund, I'm going to take you into the house: it's far too hot for you to be sitting outside.'

29 'Good God!' uttered Gavin, for Kenelm's ear. 'This is where I must think fast! None of you who pity me for my disability have the least conception of the horrors to which I am subjected. I will not bear that afflictive girl company. Quick, what does A. do?'

'You can't do anything,' said Kenelm, rather amused.

'You betray your ignorance of my character.'

Kenelm laughed, but soon found that he had underrated Mr Plenmeller's bland ingenuity, and had certainly been ignorant of the ruthlessness which led that gentleman to implicate him in his plan of escape. He now learned that owing to his own importunity Gavin was about to return to his home to fetch for his perusal, the River Board correspondence; and he began to perceive why it was that Gavin was not popular with his neighbours.

'Oh, I'm sure you ought not to!' exclaimed Mavis, glancing reproachfully at Kenelm.

'But I am sure I ought. You could see the Squire was displeased with me. He felt I shouldn't have forgotten to return the papers, and I have a dreadful premonition that I shall go on forgetting.'

'You needn't fetch them for my sake,' interrupted Kenelm maliciously.

'No, for my own!' retorted Gavin, not in the least discomfited. 'Something accomplished will earn me a night's repose. I rarely accomplish anything, and never suffer from insomnia, but Miss Warrenby has often told me what an excellent maxim that is.'

'Oh, yes, but all that way just for a few papers! Couldn't someone else go for you?' said Mavis. 'I'm sure I'd love to, if you think I could find them.'

Kenelm, who guessed that Gavin's mocking references to his lameness masked his loathing of it, was not surprised that this well-meant piece of tactlessness met with the treatment he privately thought it deserved.

'Does it seem to you a long way to my house? I thought it was only half a mile. Or are you thinking that my short leg pains me? Do let me set your mind at rest! It doesn't. You have been misled by my ungainliness.'

He turned away, and went, with his uneven gait, to where his hostess was standing. Mavis said, sighing: 'I often think it does hurt him, you know.'

'He has told you that it doesn't,' replied Kenelm, rather shortly.

She brought her eyes to bear on his face. 'He's so plucky, isn't he? People don't realize what it must mean to him, or make allowances.'

Kenelm felt that he was being reproved for insensibility, and obeyed, with relief, a summons from Mrs Haswell.

3.

By the time Gavin returned to The Cedars it was half past six, and the party was beginning to break up. Mrs Ainstable was the first to leave, driving home alone in her aged Austin, and very nearly running Gavin down as she came somewhat incautiously round the bend in the drive. She pulled up, calling out: 'So sorry! Did I frighten you?'

'Yes, I gave myself up for dead' he replied, leaving the grass verge beside the shrubbery on which he had taken refuge, and approaching the car. 'And me a cripple! How could you?'

'It's stupid to talk like that: you're not a cripple. You deserved to be frightened, anyway, for behaving so atrociously. You didn't take anyone in, you know, It was as plain as a pikestaff you didn't want to sit out with Mavis Warrenby. She is dull, of course. I can't think why very good people so often are. Why on earth didn't you pretend you had to go home early, and just leave?'

'That would have looked as if I were not enjoying the party.'

'Well, it would have been better than hatching up that quite incredible story about having to fetch a lot of unimportant papers for Bernard!' she said tartly.

'You wrong me. May I hand over to you the proofs of my integrity?' he said, drawing a long, fat envelope from the inner pocket of his coat, and giving it to her, with his impish smile. 'Is the Squire still playing tennis?'

'Yes. It's no use my waiting for him. He's going home the other way, so that he can look at what's been done in the new plantation. So foolish of him! He'll only wear himself out to no purpose. How insufferably hot it is!'

'Is it? It doesn't seem so to me. Are you quite well, Mrs Ainstable?

Well enough to be driving alone?'

'Thank you, perfectly well! Is this your way of asking for a lift?'

'No, I should be afraid,' he retorted.

'Oh, don't be so silly!' she said, rather roughly putting the car into gear.

He watched her sweep through the gates on to the lane, and walked on to rejoin the rest of the party.

One of the sets had come to an end, and Delia Lindale, who had been playing in it, was taking leave of her hostess. Since it was past Rose-Veronica's bedtime, Mrs Haswell made no attempt to detain her. Her husband waved to her from the other court,' and she sped away through the gate into the public footpath.

'I ought to be going too,' said Abby.

'No, you oughtn't: I'm going to run you home,' said Charles.

'Oh, rot! I can easily walk.'

'You can do more: you can walk beautifully, but you aren't going to.'

She laughed. 'You are an ass! Honestly, there's no need to get your car out just to run me that little distance.'

'Of course not, and I shouldn't dream of doing so. I'm doing it for Mr Drybeck,' said Charles, with aplomb.

'Really, that is very kind of you, my dear boy,' said Mr Drybeck. 'I am far from despising such a welcome offer. A most enjoyable game, that last.'

'Well, if you're going to motor Abby and Mr Drybeck home, you could give the Major a lift too,' suggested Mrs Haswell. 'You won't mind waiting till the other game finishes, will you? Mavis, now that I've got you both here, I want you and Mrs Cliburn to help me over the prizes for the Whilst Drive. I ought to get them on Monday, I think, but we never settled what we ought to spend on them. It won't take many minutes. Ah, I see the game has ended! Who won? You looked to be very evenly matched.'

'Yes, a good ding-dong game,' said the Squire, mopping his face and neck. 'Midgeholme and I just managed to pull it off, but it was a near thing. I'm not as young as I was. Hallo, you back, Plenmeller? Thought you'd gone.'

'But could you have doubted that I should, sir? Your words struck home I have fetched the correspondence which has for too long languished on my desk. I have no excuse: I didn't 33 even find it interesting.'

The Squire stared at him under his bushy brows, and gave a grunt. 'No need to have rushed off for it then and there. However, I'm obliged to you. Where is it?'

'Can it be that I have erred again? I gave the envelope into Mrs Ainstable's keeping.'

'Pity. Lindale could have taken it home, and run his eye over it. If you're going my way, I'll walk along with you, Lindale.'

'I'm afraid I'm not, sir. We didn't come in the car. I'm going by way of the footpath.'

'Yes, yes, that's all right, so am I. Going to have a look at my new plantation. My land stretches as far as the path, behind this place, you know.'

'Now nobody must go before they've had a drink,' interposed Mrs Haswell hospitably.

'Nothing more for me, thank you,' Mr Drybeck said. 'I must not hurry my kind chauffeur, but I have promised my housekeeper I will not be late. She likes to go to the cinema in Bellingham on Saturday evening, you know, and so I make it a rule to have an early supper to accommodate her.'

'By Jove, yes!' said the Major, glancing at his watch. 'I must be getting along too!'

'Perhaps I had better go quietly away,' said Gavin, setting down his empty glass. 'Something tells me I am not popular. Of course, I see now: I should have presented those papers to the Squire on bent knee, instead of handing them casually to his wife. It is all the fault of my upbringing.'

'If you want a lift, it'll be a bit of a tight squeeze, but I'll see what I can do,' said Charles, disregarding this speech.

'No, I shall wend my lonely way home, a solitary and pathetic figure. Goodbye, Mrs Haswell: so very many thanks! I enjoyed myself enormously.'

He followed the car-party to the drive, and saw them set off before limping in their wake.

'I say, is it all right? I mean, oughtn't you to have given him a lift?' asked Abby, who was sitting beside Charles in the front of the sports car. 'Does it hurt him to walk?'